This document provides biographies for Alessandra La Marca and Maria Cinque. Alessandra La Marca is a professor at the University of Palermo who teaches educational methodology and technologies. She coordinates PhD programs and is involved in research projects related to personalized education, metacognitive development, and e-learning. Maria Cinque is a researcher at the Fondazione Rui in Rome focused on technology-enhanced learning. She collaborates on research projects with the University of Palermo and teaches learning and communication skills. Both women have authored several publications on topics related to education, creativity, technology, and soft skills.

1. eTwinning
pre-seminar Briefing
Alessandra La Marca
(Università di Palermo)
Maria Cinque (Università di Palermo)

2. Alessandra La Marca
Current roles
• She is professor in Didactics and teaches Educational methodology, Educational technologies and
Experimental pedagogy at the Faculty of Education in the University of Palermo.
• She is also the Coordinator of the PhD Programme La formazione pedagogico-didattica degli insegnanti
(Pedagognical and didactical teacher traning) organised by the University of Palermo in collaboration with
the University of Enna “Kore” and with the Universidad de Burgos.
• She is president of the Palermo Division of the Italian Educational Association.
• She is member of the SIRD Scientific Committee and of the Italian University Line’s board of directors.
• She is member of CO.MED., SIRD, SIPED, ADMEE.
Past roles
• She has directed the following masters of IUL (Italian University Line):
- Didattica personalizzata; - Didattica metacognitiva: insegnare a studiare con le nuove tecnologie; - Nuove
tecnologie per imparare a pensare.
• Coordinator of the cross-sectional area of the Sissis.
• She has been Member of the C.I.R.E.
Her research interests focus on:
– personalized education, character education,single sex education,
– metacognitive development,motivation to learning, self-regulated and cooperative learning,
– problem solving,e-learning and new media.
alessandra.lamarca@unipa.it 2

3. Alessandra La Marca
Projects
• She has coordinated many proejcts on the use of information technologies in teaching
(SCOLA, Sviluppo Collaborativo Learning Objects Autoprodotti; Formazione docenti
delle scuole delle piccole isole all'uso innovativo e personalizzato delle I.C.T. nella
didattica mediante l'uso di Learning Object (L.O.)” PON - Ministry of Education; she is
Sicilian coordinator of the "cl@assi 2.0" project).
• She has been a member of the project PRIN “Metacognition competences and self-
regulated learning in blended e-learning using cooperative learning methodology to
attend a personalized education”
• Currently, she is coordinating the research “Learning evaluation and single sex school”
“The difference in male-female learning styles” many other news programs, discussing
the importance of sex differences.
Workshops, training programmes and events
• She conducts workshops for educators on the topic of relationships between teachers
and parents. She has conducted trainings on program evaluation, research methods,
data utilization and students assessment. She has promoted several national and
international events.
alessandra.lamarca@unipa.it 3

4. Alessandra La Marca
Researches
• At the moment, she is involved in the following researches: “The didactic
use of multimedia laboratory for the development of the metacognitive
competences and the self evaluation abilities and problem solving in
university students”, "Research on the instruction and teachers training.
Analysis of good practices” (APRED), “Dimensions of Intercultural
Education”, "National plan for quality and worth (PQM) “Profil des
interactions maîtres-élèves: les perceptions divergentes dans la classe”.
Publications
• She is also author of several books and has written a huge number of
papers and articles in national and international academic journals.
• Her research focuses on the bases of education for citizenship and social
participation; family and the development of social skills in children; the
social impact of information and commmunication technologies on young
people; and educational innovation in Media education.
alessandra.lamarca@unipa.it 4

5. Maria Cinque
• She is a coach and a researcher at Fondazione Rui in Rome.
• She works in the Educational Research Department of
Fondazione Rui and her main research interests focus on
Technology enhanced learning and communication, ICT and
creativity, Talent management and development.
• She collaborates in various research projects with Palermo
University concerning
– teacher training;
– ICT and new media education;
– soft skills and coaching.
m.cinque@fondazionerui.it 5

6. Maria Cinque
Teaching activities
• She teaches Learning and Communication Skills at the
Campus Bio-Medico University in Rome and holds seminars
on soft skills in different Italian Universities (Palermo, Pisa,
Pordenone, Roma, Udine).
Publications
• She has written books and articles on creativity (Agire
creativo, Franco Angeli, 2010), on technologies for teaching
and Learning (E-teaching, Palumbo 2011), on Soft skills
(Soft skills in action, Euca, 2012), on talent development
and management (In merito al talento, Franco Angeli,
2013).
m.cinque@fondazionerui.it